Orbelon's World (Book 3) (15 page)

   'How is business, Bridgekeeper?' she asked as she stepped to the other side of the bridge.

   The Bridgekeeper shook his head lugubriously. 'Not good. Not good at all. Few pass this way. After all, the only thing to see in this place is
Nothing.'

   'So travellers no longer come from near and far to gawp in awe at
Nothing? Could it be that your reputation has frightened them away? After all, for the uninformed your toll can be excessive, to say the least.'

   'Oh no, I am sure that is not the reason,' replied the Bridgekeeper. 'No, I am very fair. I think rather that the wonder of experiencing such
a Nothingness has worn thin.'

   'Perhaps,' said Lakewander sceptically.

   The Bridgekeeper trailed behind Lakewander and Leth as they moved to the cavern mouth. 'You know, I think I may have seen no one since you last came, Lakewander.'

   'That is indeed a long time. Haven’t you grown bored, leading such a solitary existence for so long?'

   'Yes, it is. And I have. Still, I’ve my amusements. And you are here now. Will you not stop now and sup with me, you and your heroic warrior friend? I have a tasty stew warming in the pot. I will tell you marvellous stories.'

   'I regret, Bridgekeeper, we can’t. We are pressed.' Lakewander replied. Aside to Leth she whispered, 'You will pass this way again. Accept nothing from him. Always announce yourself three times and pay his toll. Do not attempt to sneak past; the Bridgekeeper is wilier than he looks. He will catch you out and you will wish he had not. Do not eat his stew, and never listen to his stories. If you do you will never leave.'

   'Ah, that is regrettable,' said the Bridgekeeper. 'And surprising, for after all, where you are going, there is Nothing to keep you entertained.'

   He seemed to find something highly amusing in this, for he began to laugh, a rumbling sepulchral sound that emerged from deep in his swollen gut and reverberated heavily off the cavern walls. His laughter accompanied them as they passed down a dim flight of steep, deeply cut steps towards a shaft of pale grey light some one hundred feet below.

   At the bottom they faced an opening; brilliant daylight from outside dazzled and failed to reveal what lay before them Lakewander laid a cautioning hand upon Leth's arm. 'When you step out, stand until your eyes clear. Do not try to go any further.'

   He did as she said. When his eyes adjusted to the unnatural brightness of the day he found he was standing at one end of long narrow beach at the foot of a high headland stretching into the distance. But it was unlike any beach he had ever seen. It extended as far as his eyes could see and was composed of sand and broad streaks of shingle. But both sand and shingle were imbued with soft, hazy colours. It seemed that a blurred iridescence clothed their surface, reflecting an extraordinary light.

   But this was not the most remarkable feature. For what Leth saw now made him gasp. He stood transfixed, his mind barely able to take it in. The beach sloped gently towards the waterline, but where the ocean should have begun there was no lapping water, nor continuation of sand, shingle or anything else. There was, simply and most awfully, utter emptiness; a phenomenon wholly resistant to emotional or intellectual grasp, for there was nothing, quite literally no thing, there to be grasped.

   'It is the Shore of Nothing,' Lakewander said.

   Leth was giddy at the sight, gaping wide-mouthed, shaking his head from side to side. He tried to form words but nothing came. When Lakewander put her hand to his arm he drew in a great, strangled breath. In his mind a yell had been trying to manifest, an involuntary expression of the sudden numbing terror he felt at the sight of this. . . this utter absence of being, which he could find no reference for. Her touch, human and real, brought him back from the brink of the abyss.

  
Orbelon, I do not want to travel alone!

  'Swordbearer, it is the End of the World,' Lakewander said.

   Struggling for breath, Leth turned his face to hers. His entire body was trembling and he knew his face revealed everything that was passing through him at that moment, but he could do nothing to conceal his shock. Lakewander gave a small smile of sympathy. 'It’s all right, Lord. It affects everyone like that the first time.' She looked out into the dreadful emptiness. 'Had I been able I would have warned you, but how can you prepare anyone for a sight, a phenomenon such as this?'

   'H- how--' Leth began, but he could still not form the words.

   Lakewander turned back to him. He saw, without understanding, that her face had been transformed. She looked at him with an expression that spoke of profound personal tragedy. Her eyes swam with tears and her voice shook. 'Ascaria.' She swallowed, inhaled deeply. 'This was once my home. There were lakes and forests here where I played. A town where I was born and grew to adulthood. My family lived here, and many others. But she took it all away.'

   Leth only half heard her. His eyes were back upon the shore and the endless void that lay beyond, so close to where he stood. He thought momentarily of the blue void he had wandered across with Jace and Galry. The loneliness of that place had been oppressive, yet its emptiness could not be compared to this. He looked up. The Orb of the Godworld was obscured by the high cliff, but the blue sky extended . . . and then ended, directly overhead, on a line with the shore. Beyond the shore there was no horizon, no feature of any kind, not even direction, up or down. His brain still struggled to qualify what he was witnessing. He felt nauseous. He could make no sense of what lay before him, for it was
Nothing, and his mind rebelled.

   And then, unbidden, the thought came:
the End of the World!

   He was rocked with a sudden racing spasm of wild hope. He stepped down from the rock he and Lakewander occupied, and stood upon the beach. The sand was soft beneath his feet, its colours a mist. He
stared wild-eyed into the emptiness.

   Was it possible? His heart hammered. Could he step from here and find himself back at Enchantment's Reach?

   'Will you abandon your children, Swordbearer?'

   Her voice broke the spell. Leth let loose a painful breath. His shoulders sagged; he felt himself slump, and wondered for a moment if he had become insane.

   'That’s what you were thinking, wasn’t it?' Lakewander stepped down onto the  beach and stood beside him. 'That this might be escape?'

   She bent and scooped up a handful of small pebbles.

   'You may be correct,' she said. 'Nobody has ever discovered. But look.'

   She tossed the pebbles into the void beyond the shore. They disappeared, without sound or shimmer. 'I’ve seen someone - several people - step from the beach. They have never been seen again. Will you risk it?
Even if your children were here. Would you?'

   Leth said nothing, knowing, as did she, that he would not.

   'Earlier,' said Lakewander after a pause, 'you said that the Souls did not place themselves in our midst, where we must witness them always and be torn by the burden they place upon our consciences. Now that you’ve seen the End of the World I will tell you: upon the plain where the Souls are now there was once a city. The Souls put themselves among the people, on the streets, in the squares and parks. That was their intention, to force us to notice them at all times. And then, one day, Ascaria took our city. It simply crumbled without a sound and was gone, and everyone and everything in it, except for the Souls. They remained. And unlike here, where the land and even the sky were taken, the land was untouched. We don’t know why. But we fear her, Swordbearer. We can’t comprehend her power, we just see what she is capable of.'

   Leth thought of Orbelon. This was his world. Did he know that others existed here? He had always spoken as though alone. Was he aware of Ascaria, the Kancanitrix,
the Dark Flame? Did she threaten him?

   'We should go now,' said Lakewander, stepping back up to the entrance to the stairway. She paused. 'Soon you’ll return here, but you will be prepared.'

   'Here?' Leth frowned. 'Why?'

   Lakewander raised her hand and pointed along the line of the shore. Far off, in the sky above the point where the headland met the beach at the limit of their vision, Leth spied the glimmer of the World's Agony. It appeared slightly larger now than when he had observed it that morning.
Slightly closer. Or might that be illusion?

   'That is your guide. Follow it always. It will lead you to her.'

   'And what else lies along that route, beyond the far limit of the Shore?'

   She shook her head. 'No one has succeeded in walking the length of the beach. There is something. . . . We don’t know what. It robs people of their minds.' She met his eyes, and forestalled his protest.
'But not you, Swordbearer. Not you.'

   'How do you know this?'

   Her face was filled with sorrow. 'We believe.'

VI

   They made their way back up the long dark steps. The huge form of the Bridgekeeper was slumped near the entrance. He was sleeping, his back propped against the stone wall of the tunnel, his legs stretched across its maw. He snored loudly, almost as loudly as he had laughed during their descent. They slipped by him, squeezing past his enormous feet, and crossed the bridge to where their horses waited.

   The journey back to the place of the haunted walls, which Lakewander and her people called Orbia, passed without incident. Leth and Lakewander sped across the Plain of Imprisoned Souls, neither pausing nor turning their heads to look at the terrible figures. No Soul cried out to them, or if they did they did not hear. In the wood they came upon the Sufferer at the wayside. He was in approximately the same place as before, and this time they did not stop. Nor did they pause to rest or eat again.

   As dusk began to close in they approached Orbia. Leth turned in his saddle to look back at the two celestial bodies. The Orb of the Godworld was low above the hills, and more clearly defined in the fading light than it had been in the brightness of morning. It blazed brilliant blue-white, like a fabulous gem, cooler than in its daylight phase. It appeared to have moved only slightly since the morning. Certainly it did not seem to rise and set as did the sun over Enchantment's
Reach, and Leth could not determine if it followed a regular, set path across the sky.

   In contrast to the Orb of the Godworld, the World's Agony shone more brightly with the decreasing light. As he watched it Leth felt again the sudden anguish that he had experienced when he first laid eyes on it from the observatory the previous night. He turned back, remembering his intention to view Orbia's exterior as he drew close, but once again he was foiled, for it was invisible behind the trees, and then, quite suddenly, they were beneath the trees and within its walls.

   At Lakewander's insistence they went directly to Master Protector's chamber, where the old man awaited them, Summoner at his side. Master Protector seemed in good spirits, greeting them with raised arms and a broad smile. 'You have seen everything, Lord Swordbearer?'

   Leth nodded soberly. 'Enough.
And more.'

   'And do you understand now and accept what must be done? There is no other can do this, only the Swordbearer armed with the Sword of the Orb.'

   'I’ve not seen evidence of that.'

   'Then will you take our word?'

   Leth looked at Lakewander. Her eyes were upon him, grey and still. She was pale, tense, plainly fatigued from the journey and the experiences they had shared, as too was he. But he saw the hope in her eyes, and he remembered her tears. He swallowed, and nodded. 'There is no question that I will go wherever my children are, and do whatever must be done to return them to their home. And if, in the process, I can help you, I will.'

   Master Protector brought his hands together and sat back, beaming. 'We are so grateful that you came, Swordbearer.
So, so glad. You cannot know.'

   'You lay so
much store by me. I wish I could share your certainty.'

   'Nothing is certain, Lord. But until yesterday we hardly even had hope.'

   'Still, you are sure enough to allow me to stride the Shore of Nothing where, I am told, men are routinely driven to madness.'

  
'But not gods!' Master Protector's eyes glittered. 'Believe me, many perils lie before you, and no one can accurately foresee how you will fare. But you are the Swordbearer. You have come, and you carry the Sword, and we believe in you!'

   Leth was tired. He saw no point in arguing his case further. He felt that, whatever his own wishes, he was being driven by forces he could barely comprehend, and certainly could not command. His one desire was to find Galry and Jace and return with them to Enchantment's Reach. Nothing else mattered.

   So he held his protests and made ready to excuse himself and retire. But Summoner was whispering into Master Protector's ear, and the old man nodded with an inward look, then addressed Leth once again. 'There is another matter, which good Summoner has just recalled to my attention.' He cleared his throat, seemed a little uncomfortable. He took a deep, wheezing breath. 'This is, er, delicate. I hope you will not consider it an affront, Swordbearer, but I would be remiss in my duties if I were to fail to mention it.' He coughed slightly into his frail hand. 'Last night you declined to lie with Lakewander. We wonder, do you find fault with her?'